Good Man
by supercarXS
Summary: When the War Rig suffers a breakdown, Max and Furiosa must defend their truck – and its cargo – against an ambush by a handful of Immortan Joe's scouts, but not all goes as planned. The two are taken captive, and as they fight for their freedom, they realize just how much they really need each other if they want to make it out alive.
1. Chapter 1

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This movie. Absolutely incredible. For an auto tech such as myself, I was drooling over the incredible machines... The action was superb and the storytelling phenomenal. Naturally, I fell in love, and here I am writing fics about it! This story is mostly canon, but I've only seen the film once so bear with me if there are any inaccuracies. I couldn't tell you where in the timeline of events it takes place in, either, so use your imagination!

This is a first-person narrative and I assume the perspectives of Max and Furiosa both, so pay attention to the names mentioned in brackets1

Please favorite and leave a comment if you're so inclined :) As usual I crave feedback! ^_^ Enjoy!

 ** _CHAPTER ONE_**

 **** ** _[max rockatansky]_**

I hummed, and the truck hummed with me.

Couldn't remember the last time I'd sang and I certainly didn't consider myself to be _good,_ but, hey, it kept me from falling asleep at the wheel.

The truck, she sang better than I did. Twin Holley superchargers whistled in perfect harmonization in competition with the first of two massive diesel engines. She was running on just the one right now. I'd shut the second down some kilometers back when its temperature gauge flared red, and now, even as I watched, that of the first engine was slipping dangerously close to the red zone. I frowned, grunted, and tapped on the glass, halfheartedly hoping that I could jostle it back to a safe reading. The glowing red needle twitched.

I stopped humming. Held my breath.

The needle settled right back down, just like that, and much to my dismay, it continued towards the red zone.

I breathed in. Smelled coolant. _Shit._

Squeezing my eyes shut, I bared my teeth as my right hand temporarily abandoned the shifter to rub at the bridge of my nose. It didn't help much. Raw skin stings when you grind dirt and sweat and steering column grease into it, and I once again cursed the bastards who'd forced me into that godawful metal headstall. The damn thing relentlessly bore into the soft flesh between my eyes and the bridge of my nose as I was paraded around as a hood ornament atop some modified Chevy coupe, my blood flowing into the sonuvabitch behind the wheel. The headstall was gone now, left somewhere in the wake of this massive truck affectionately referred to as the War Rig, but I could feel its constriction as though it were still clamped down around my skull.

I lifted my gaze. Darkness. So much darkness. The headlight stalk taunted me from the left hand side of the steering wheel, but I didn't dare touch it. Light in this darkness would be seen miles away. Squinting, I tried my best to pick out the imperfections in the sand ahead of me aided only by the weak glare of stars.

I had a decent view of the horizon in both directions, and so far they seemed clear. No headlights, no flaming exhausts, no glowing brake rotors. We'd managed to put some good distance between ourselves and our pursuers today. I knew it wouldn't deter them for long. Persistent buggers, those War Dogs, or War Boys, whatever the hell those sickly subhuman things called themselves. Didn't much matter to me. An enemy is an enemy, and when you kill them it doesn't make a difference whether or not they have a name.

My hand fell back to the shifter. I palmed the smooth bone handle and wondered, not for the first time that day, if it had belonged to a living human at one point. Wouldn't surprise me. This day and age, anything and everything was salvaged and fashioned into functional parts. Many of the vehicles I'd seen had human skulls proudly strapped to cannibalized grilles, including this one. It was morbid, but then again, so was everything else here.

I still smelled coolant. The sweet stench reminded me of syrup. I felt sticky saliva build up on the back of my tongue and frowned as my mind wandered. It'd been so long since I'd tasted syrup, _real_ syrup; what I wouldn't give for a dab of syrup, just to take away the constant nasty rust-flavor lining the inside of my mouth!

In any other situation, I would've smiled, but right now all I could to was deepen the downwards curve of my lips. _Focus, Max. Focus._

A glance down to the thermometer showed that it was edging on the red zone. No way we could keep going like this. I stomped the clutch pedal and began the process of reining the War Rig back in. Her engine cried, her tachometer slipped dangerously close to redline, superchargers singing, singing then dying as I dragged the truck back down through the gears and eased to a halt.

"Something's wrong." Statement, not question; the voice from the passenger's seat reminded me that I wasn't alone. Far from it, actually.

My eyes stayed locked on the expanse of starlit desert sand stretched between the sloping dunes flanking us. "Temp's spiked in Engine One," I muttered. "Two's shut off; still in the red."

My companion, if you could call her that, unfolded and split herself from the dark cloth of her seat. She blended with it, which was why I forgot she was there, her shadowed form barely visible against the backdrop of night. Brilliant green eyes blinked wide in the darkness as she leaned over and saw the screaming gauges.

I thought for a moment, pushed aside the muck inside my mind until I unearthed her name. Furiosa. Imperator Furiosa. I dipped my head as she met my gaze.

Both her hands went for her short-shorn hair. She made a noise in her throat, glanced all around, leaning out the window to stare behind us like she expected our pursuers to breach the horizon at any moment. Satisfied that it was clear, she kneed the door open, leaped nimbly to the ground, voice distorting as it bent around the front of the Rig. "Let's check it out."

I waited a moment before flipping the ignition switch off to silence the engine. My shoulder nudged the Rig's suicide door open and I dropped into the sand. Furiosa was already in front of the truck, hoisting the hood up with a mighty shove, glaring into the engine compartment like she could intimidate the thing back into working condition. Her mechanical arm scraped and rasped against hot metal as she leaned over her machine. Teeth bared, she latched onto a rubber hose the size of my forearm, carefully examining it before delving deeper into the guts of the Rig and locating the next.

I jumped up on the head of the plow hanging in front of the truck's nose. I didn't dare touch anything – I could feel the heat radiating from the grille even from here, and I wasn't in the mood for another brand. The back of my neck still stung from the first one…

"Hmm." She was prodding at something. Steam hissed from deep within the machine. I looked on curiously as she squatted, swinging herself around to the side of the truck and using the tire as a perch. "Damn! Gashed hose," she murmured. "Nicked by a bullet, probably. Must've taken a while to split under the pressure, but we're losing coolant _fast_."

She turned back to me, jerked her head backwards. In some distant corner of my mind, I described her as savagely beautiful with her shorn hair, sun-weathered skin, and slim battle-trimmed physique, but as quickly as the thought appeared it crumbled back into the depths of my consciousness. "I've got a toolkit in the cab," she rushed. "Should have some cutters and clamps in it. We can cut this broken hose and splice it back together."

I nodded and forced my aching body back down into the sand. My bad knee, confined within a brace to minimize the aftereffects of an old gunshot wound, hinged under my weight, and I narrowly stopped myself from smacking the ground face-first by catching myself on the Rig's plow. My shoulders hadn't gotten over the abuse of being a human hood ornament quite yet, and I gritted my teeth against the pain as I lurched back up to my full height. Stumbling back to the driver's side door, I hauled myself up and prepared to mount into the cab, when I heard engines.

My head snapped around. Wildly scanning my surroundings, I felt a rare, deep bolt of fear spike at my gut when I couldn't pinpoint the source. Arms shook as I launched myself into the cab and grabbed at the weapon I'd stashed on the dashboard, and again to the one I'd balanced precariously on the door panel. Shotgun and pistol. I jammed the pistol into a loop on my belt and slipped the shotgun across my shoulders.

Movement stirred in the back of the truck. I took my lips between my teeth and forced air through my nose in frustration. The four women, taken under Furiosa's care, had obviously heard the engines as well and were scrambling to hide themselves.

"It's leaking coolant, isn't it?" The bald, pale form of our resident War Boy glanced back at me as he ushered our silent stowaways back into their hiding place. I snarled at him. Bastard had taken my blood for the sake of powering his sick body, and it'd been his ride that had seen me used as ornamentation. Not really a way to score points in my book.

Unfazed by my hostility, the War Boy smiled sheepishly through his horribly disfigured lips, scarred to look like the skeletal grimace of death. "Smelled it from back there, and you were talking about an overheating problem." He stepped over the seat. His arms were heavy with the black toolbox. "I can help, you know."

"Really." Furiosa appeared at my side, arching a thin dark eyebrow at the pale man, who gestured towards the gruesome scarring plastering his chest. A representation of a cross-sectioned carbureted V8 engine marked him.

"Say what you want about Immortan Joe, but his program puts out some damn good techs, and I'm one of them." The War Boy was all seriousness now. "Please, let me help."

Furiosa regarded him with suspicion, but as the engines in the distance became louder, she gave a sharp, quick nod. "Fine. Come on." With that, she jumped back off the truck, but not before she'd armed herself with four guns stashed in every available gap in her clothing. "Girls, stay down."

"Right," came the soft reply as the trapdoor in the cab's floor slammed shut.

The War Boy – I think he called himself Nux, or something like that – moved to leave the Rig, finding I blocked his exit. He met my gaze and I made sure he saw my teeth as our shoulders thumped heavily together. He pursed his lips and averted his eyes, subconsciously submitting to me. Good. He dropped off the truck and trotted to its front. I waited a moment before stepping back down to the ground. This time, my sore legs finally gave out and I fell. Elbows dug into sand that was still hot from the day's torturous sun.

"Look alive." Furiosa's husky voice carried to me around the front of the truck as the War Boy inserted himself into the Rig's guts. Angrily, I sorted out the leather straps of my leg brace, yanked it back into proper position. I stood, shook the grit out of the folds of my jacket, and faced her. She pointed to the horizon where I finally picked out the source of the thrumming engine sound. It was a single vehicle, a jacked-up pickup looming above us on oversized tires, and one that certainly didn't appear to be slowing at all.

"Scout truck," she murmured. "Must've been on the other side of the dunes."

"Will they attack?" I took my shotgun into my hands. Its cool weight was a solemn reassurance.

"We're sitting ducks out here."

I took that as a _yes_ and racked my shotgun with a menacing _cha-chink_. Stalking in front of the ailing War Rig, I paused, widened my stance, and prepared to face off against the pickup bearing down on us. Furiosa brandished her sniper rifle. It clicked as she sent a bullet into the chamber and peered down the sights. How she could see in this dim light, I had no idea.

"I can splice this, I think," the War Boy hissed from his perch inside the Rig's engine bay.

"Great. We don't have much time. Get on it." Furiosa gritted her teeth.

"I'll work quick, but a fast repair might not hold for very long." He hummed. "It _won't_ hold for very long."

"Make it hold long enough to get us out of this!" She stamped a foot down, snapped at the Rig like Nux could see her. A pale hand flung above the edge of the hood was his response, and I heard the clinking of tools as he set to work. I didn't move. Not so much as a muscle twitched as I gripped the shotgun with one hand. The other thumbed the edge of the scarf wrapped around my throat. Tension cracked through the air like lightning, and I bristled, staring down the pickup that thought it could take us on.

Silence.

Then, it all exploded.

War cries, pounding pistons, screaming turbochargers, rattling suspension, staccato gunshot bursts. I twisted out of the path of a bullet as it whined just past my ear, using the same motion to throw out two rapid shots of return fire. I hadn't really aimed, so you can imagine my surprise when I heard the unmistakable watery crashing sound of shattering glass as the windscreen erupted. Of course this pissed them off even more, and another volley of gunfire tossed grit and dust into the air in front of us as they answered my shots. At my side, Furiosa loaded, aimed, shot, loaded, aimed, shot in methodic cadence, like she was more machine than woman. Loaded, aimed, shot…

The pursuing truck sagged in the front as its rubber tire gushed air. Two more rounds were dumped into my shotgun. Racked it. Fired. Saw sparks as my bullets struck something metal. The windscreen was mostly gone. I aimed for the driver. He had a passenger, hanging out the opposite window with a machine gun in hand, and another perched on the bed of the truck manning some sort of turret. The muzzle blazed as he opened it up at us.

"Cover Nux!" Furiosa's command was unnecessary. What did she think I was doing right _now_? My arms, fatigued from doing so much of the same already today, weakened more as I pulled the trigger. Goddamn, I was tired. I hadn't slept in, what, close to a day and a half now? My muscles burned as they absorbed the weapon's kick, my shoulder blades shuddered as I abandoned the heavy shotgun in favor of the lighter pistol. There we go. The kickback wasn't near as harsh, and I took sloppy aim at the turret gunner, pulled the trigger, danced around the shots he got off at me as I sent my own in his direction.

The turret gunner screamed. His skeletal face reared back as he spun away from his post, neon blood slinging into the night as he wailed his agonies to the sky. The cry morphed, turned into something akin to a dark laugh. His lips formed something about that Valhalla thing they all lusted after, and like elastic, he snapped forward and latched onto his weapon again.

The shot glanced off my left bicep. I actually _felt_ the muscle and skin blast into a fine, bloody spray as my scratchy woven shirt ruptured around the bullet's path. They might as well have struck me down with the grille of their pickup. Felt the same. The force yanked me off my feet and sent me slamming rather ungracefully onto my back. Sand cushioned my fall, thankfully, but buried itself in my eyes and coated my lips. Blood leaked from the wound and weighed down my shirtsleeve. Shock numbed the pain, or it might've been adrenaline. I wasn't sure. Didn't matter. I flipped over onto my stomach as I swept the dirt in search of my gun, fingers gouging deep tracts in it.

There! My hand latched around the cold metal and I whipped it forward. Shots rang out from both directions, pinging off the ground and the grille of the Rig behind me. Furiosa had ditched her sniper rifle and was waving a Tommy gun around, spraying the pickup with rounds. Up close, I saw that it was an old Ford that might've been orange at some point in its life, with some crude but intimidating bladed supports bolted to the front end. They jutted like fangs bent at strange angles, and they were headed right towards me.

Sparks skipped across the rusted hood, blood spattered over what was left of the windscreen, and the pickup spun into an awkward skid to the right. Its rear end barreled towards me and I jumped at the opportunity to get a clear shot off, then two, then three, and saw the turret gunner's body thrash as he absorbed the bullets into his flesh.

A battle cry split he air in my immediate area as the War Boy hanging out the passenger's side window threw himself at me with his pale, pasty arms outstretched. I brought my gun up, sent a bullet into the chamber, tried to shoot. No time. He was on top of me before I even really knew what was going on. My head snapped to the side as he pounded a fist into my jaw, driving the side of my face into the sand as I collapsed under his weight.

He had a knife.

I deflected the swift downwards stroke of the blade by sweeping my elbow out and knocking his wrist out of its intended path. The flat side of the knife scraped me across the chest, the tip catching in my woven shirt as he collapsed forward with an arm on either side of me.

An uppercut to the underside of his jaw was enough to throw him off of me, and he howled, clutching his chin and spitting curses in my direction. I'd accidentally thrown my gun when I hit the ground. It lay in a little crater of sand a few meters away. With some difficulty I tossed myself back onto my feet and scrambled after it.

A sharp swing from both of the War Boy's feet knocked me back to the earth. My throat rattled with a surprised cry. The ground met my side without mercy, and stars exploded behind my vision as my head slapped the sand again. Just to make sure I was down, the Boy towered over me, hauled one leg back, then kicked at the base of my skull.

The sonuvabitch had on steel-toed boots!

Blood flowed into my mouth and dripped down the back of my throat as I lay there stunned. The sky, it had some clouds, but as I watched, the stars turned in perfect circles, everything was spinning, _where's my gun, I need my gun, it's in my hand, okay now Max thumb back the hammer and take aim_ and then –

My assailant jerked around to the left as my poorly-aimed bullet nicked him in the side of the ribcage. Oh well. Better than wasting a shot. Head still swimming, I threw one leg out, then another, stood up. The soft sand didn't help the whole balance situation, let me tell you. I limped up to the poor bastard who grinned at me through chrome-stained lips and started to whisper something, but I was somehow able to put a bullet through his head and he lay still.

My sleeve felt hot, sticky. Furiosa seemed like she had the driver pinned down on her own, so I braved a glance at it. Blood. So much blood for such a tiny wound. I splayed my fingers over it, spreading the fabric so I could get a good look at the damage. Meaty muscle gleamed under a fine coat of blood, colorless in the dim starlight.

Furiosa screamed, a hoarse, raspy cry. Her gun cracked, and then suddenly it was all quiet. My ears rang. My arm stung. Tired muscles finally unwound, and my shoulders sagged, but I knew something wasn't right with me because the landscape rocked in a lazy motion, my eyes scrambled to find something solid to ground myself to…

"You okay?" She looked towards me. Her face was shadowed, but the way she was standing wasn't quite right. She favored her right leg, hip cocked at a strange angle.

I nodded, keeping my hand pressed over my shot arm as I holstered my pistol. "You?"

"I'll be fine. I stepped wrong. That's all." She frowned and came closer to me. "You're bleeding."

"Just a scratch." I shrugged her off and faced the War Rig. Nux seemed to know I was staring at him, because I saw his dark eye sockets peer over the top of the hood.

He waved a ratchet at us. "Going back together now," he declared. "It needs a new hose if we really want to keep the coolant in, but this should at least get us—"

"Do you hear that?" Furiosa threw up a hand. I squinted in the direction she was facing, trying to ignore the screeching tinnitus echoing in my ears and the way the sand dunes rolled like ocean waves.

Over the top of the dunes, there was dust. Dust in the air, and an engine screaming towards us.

I drew my pistol in the same instant that a second vehicle breached the top of the hill, all four wheels in the air so I got a nice view of its undercarriage. This one, it was a car. A boxy hatchback, a relic from another time. Swirl marks gleamed on the plated armor riveted to every available surface except the windscreen but even that was barred with thick metal beams. I fired blindly with the pistol, but my shots bounced uselessly off the reinforced steel coating the car's exterior.

 _Click. Click._ No more bullets.

There was another clip in my pocket. At least, there should have been. I felt all over myself but turned up nothing. Cursing, I tossed the pistol to the side and threw myself at the shotgun I'd abandoned earlier. I think I got off two shots with it, I'm not sure, because suddenly I was very woozy, and my bad leg gave out, and my center of balance wasn't anywhere close to normal, and then I was on the ground again and there was a War Boy on top of me.

He took my shotgun.

 _I need that._ I groped around for it, fueled by desperation and a biting will to live. The skeleton straddling me caught my wrist and bent it painfully over the top of my head. His face blurred into a white and black smear of paint on a deep blue canvas.

"NO!" Was that Furiosa? She sounded far away. I fought the War Boy and stared in her direction. There she was. Her eyes were wild and her mouth was open as she galloped in my direction, only to be cut off by a warrior leaping from the roof of the hatchback, pinned to the ground. He shoved a gun in her face. I thrashed when I saw that, even as my wrists were linked together in cuffs and I was dragged into a kneeling position with my arms pinned to the top of my head.

"Where are they?" The one holding Furiosa hissed, and she laughed in his face.

There was a flash of white from the War Rig's hood, a slamming of metal, and Nux scrambled like a spider back over to the door I'd left open. He swung the toolkit into the back and paused with a pale arm on the door, glaring wide-eyed at Furiosa, then to me.

"GO!" she screamed, and I think I did, too, because the Rig started up. The scouts ran after it, but they'd foolishly abandoned their car and found that they were much slower on foot. Nux put the Rig through her paces, and I watched, hopeless, fearful, as it lumbered off, picking up speed as it went away in a shroud of orange dust.

We all watched it go.


	2. Chapter 2

**_CHAPTER TWO_**

 ** _[imperator furiosa]_**

I fought for everything that I was worth.

The spindly little creature trying to hold me down was easy to throw off, and I was up and running in the vague direction of the receding War Rig, but something stalled my stride just long enough to let him tackle me again. No, it wasn't my ankle, which had been throbbing something fierce ever since I took a misstep into that hole in the sand. I could feel it pulsing and swelling against the inside of my boot. _Great._ It was probably broken.

When they tossed me back to the ground – next to _him_ – I suddenly understood what had held me back.

He leaned forward, shoulders hunched so far inward he appeared to be collapsing into himself. His head drooped and his fists dragged at the sand as he rocked himself back and forth, murmuring in low tones under his breath. At first I assumed he was muttering to himself as he so often did, but when I really strained my ears, I realized he wasn't forming words but instead moaning in pain. His top half was bare, his woven shirt bunched up and tangling with the chains binding his wrists. Sweat gleamed on his bare skin in the ambient desert light. His captor leaned over him, squinting to read the paragraph tattooed across his upper back in jagged lettering.

Biting my lip, I turned away. I felt all sorts of sick and allowed myself a moment of self-pity. Here I was, the _great_ Imperator, being lashed down by a handful of fanatical, sickly young men. My ankle throbbed. My head hurt like hell. My mechanical arm had been confiscated, leaving me with my pathetic stump of a limb. I'd gotten my ass kicked by my inferiors. I'd been shamed. The War Rig was nothing but a dot on the horizon now, a blot of dark ink spotting the cloud of dust kicked up by its wheels. Leaving me behind.

Soon, I wouldn't be able to see it at all.

 _Maybe never again._

That made me ill more than anything else. My girls were in that truck. They trusted me with their freedom _and_ their lives! But now, I'd failed them and left them in the care of Nux… and I wasn't so sure that War Boy wouldn't whip the Rig around and march them straight into Immortan Joe's hands. _Oh, girls,_ I thought miserably, _I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I let this happen…_

My self-loathing was abruptly cut off when my eyes wandered back over to the madman, and his wild gaze snatched up mine.

His face. His face, all hard angles and deep shadows, was slicked up with blood. It dripped sluggishly from an ugly gash half-hidden in his hairline, matting hair and dyeing skin as it flowed down the side of his face and neck before splattering onto his chest. He blinked at me. Gray-blue eyes were bright with pain, void of… everything. I suddenly wanted to scream at him, backhand him across the face, do _something_ to bring the fiery rebellion back to those eyes because seeing them so blank unnerved me more than I cared to admit.

It was him. He was the reason I couldn't run, because I _couldn't_ leave him behind.

"Quit movin' around," hissed the Boy trying to read his back. Of course the madman paid no mind and carried on rocking himself. A defiant smirk tugged at his unshaven cheek and blood spattered the sand.

"I said, quit movin' around!" A pasty fist shot out and cracked painfully against his jaw. He grunted and teetered on his knees for a moment before smashing over onto his side where he lay motionless. For a panicked, fleeting moment I thought the blow had done him in, but when his sides resumed their steady rise and fall motion and I heard him chuckle darkly to himself, I released the breath I'd been holding.

The second War Boy, who was busy tying me up, spoke over my shoulder as he lashed my stubbed arm to my chest with a length of hardy twine. "I'm sorry about this."

"No you're not," I muttered under my breath.

"Universal donor?!" The Boy at my companion's back whooped. "Immortan will give us lotsa shiny for this one!"

"Oh, no. We're _not_ taking the blood bag with us." There was the unmistakable click of a revolver being loaded, and when I glanced up I saw that the third Boy had a gun to the madman's head. "Don't wanna use up the guzzoline to move him, or get blood all over my car." He thumbed the hammer back. "Time for the scrapheap, spare parts!"

"No!" I cried before I could stop myself.

They all whipped around to look at me. Then, they started to laugh, one by one, and I sat there with my chest heaving while I tried to figure out what had come over me. Why did I suddenly care so much about my crazy hitchhiker?

"You like spare parts? Fine, we'll keep him 'til we figure out how much he's worth." The Boy snarled, then rounded on his buddy. " _You_ can clean the blood."

Normally, I would've found the swaying motion of the car's suspension relaxing, but not tonight. Every jolt of tires slapping through ruts made me cringe. Even the normally soothing whine of turbochargers drove headache further into my skull. I did my best to tune it out, but to no avail.

The hatchback once had two rows of seats – I could see the remnants of supports bolted to the floorboards – but now, the trunk was free of obstruction, giving me and my mad companion room to stretch out. I lay on my back, both feet braced against the tailgate as I stared up at the ornate plating above me. I had similar ornamentation installed in my War Rig, and if I squinted really hard, it was easy to pretend that I was still inside of it.

"Mmmmfff." Yet another groan rumbled from the madman's throat. The War Boy perched in the back with us tossed him an annoyed glance, but I was more sympathetic. I turned so I could see him. His eyes were open, just barely, and his brow was furrowed, drawing deep gouges in his skin. His shoulder twitched as he tried to raise an arm to swipe away blood that had dripped into his eye. When he found he was bound at the wrists, he paused, glared all around as he took stock of the situation, and tried to sit up sharply.

He quickly found himself staring down the wrong end of a gun.

"Don't," I snapped.

I wasn't quite sure towards whom the command was aimed, but either way it worked. The War Boy slowly lowered his gun as the madman eased himself down onto his back. He was still bleeding. Oh, the blood! It was thick and dark now like scarlet molasses, trying to clot at his gashed forehead. And, oh, no no no, I sincerely hoped that wasn't _bone_ I saw, a pearly yellow streak amidst all the red. What had caused that wound? Did he hit his head on a rock? Was he struck with a weapon? A fist?

A… bullet?

It made sense; I'd seen him fall under fire from the turret. Just a glancing blow. Had to be. If there was really a piece of metal lodged inside his skull, he'd be dead already… right?

Suddenly, I felt a resounding _thunk_ as the driver sloppily wrenched the transmission into a lower gear. "War party ahead, closing fast!"

"Fang it!" snapped the Boy crouched with us.

"That'll run us right into them!"

"Isn't that what we want?" The one in the passenger's seat was leaning out the window, firing his semi-automatic weapon into empty air as he hollered. _"IMMORTAAAAAAAAN! WE GOT HER! WE GOT FURIOSAAAAAAAAAAA!"_

The scream of distant engines peaked over the sound of the hatchback's turbos as the driver once again released it into its highest gear and stomped the accelerator. Golden light danced over us as flames erupted from the tailpipes. Some part of me rejoiced in the sudden burst of speed while my logical side understood I was likely headed for my execution.

A glance at the madman told me that he was battling with the same doomsday thoughts.

"We're going to get run over!"

"Have you not played this game? You run at each other and keep the pedal matted until you see the very gates of Valhalla. If you lift first, you lose!"

 _Oh, please let us be killed,_ I thought. _Let it be a spectacular wreck to keep us out of Joe's hands…_

The car's chassis shuddered and the engine growled in displeasure as the driver suddenly yanked the poor machine into a tight drift. Armor rattled, struts groaned and clanked, motors screamed. They were all around us. Headlights brightened the bleak desert and we were trapped in a tornado of metal, oil, rubber, and glass as vehicles thundered on all sides. I grunted as I was thrown around, scrambling for purchase with my bound limbs before I smacked the side of the hatchback's interior. I swear we were running on only two wheels as the car tipped vicariously and wobbled, threatening to flip as all the weight was rolled off-center.

There wasn't really anything I could do. The vehicle's momentum sent me sliding straight towards the madman. We collided and I felt my weight drive him against the cold steel siding, crushing the air out of his chest with a gut-wrenching moan. The hatchback teetered and I thought for sure we were going over this time but then it smashed back down onto all fours. I was cast onto the floor again and he landed beside me, mouth agape as he tried to inflate his lungs with a horrible rasping sound like a cracked muffler.

No time for an apology. The driver slammed the car forward again, this time joining the flow of the snarling pack. Our little hatchback shot ahead of the fray, and out the back window I saw a hulking metal beast in pursuit, an amalgamation of two Cadillac coupes piled on top of one another and crouched forward on tires taller than me, ready to pounce on its prey.

In some other world I might've called it beautiful, but its snarling grille only evoked disgust in me. That was the Gigahorse, Immortan Joe's prized steed.

The hatchback lurched as its tailgate was cast open. I found myself wrapped up in an arm across my throat and a hand clutching the back of my skull. A dry scream escaped me as I was hung out the back. The madman made a panicked noise, and I bared my teeth as I saw the sand barreling beneath us less than a meter from my face. _He's going to throw me out and I'm going to die under that thing's wheels…!_

"Immortan says stop!" The command was passed forward as the tailgate slammed shut. I tumbled back in but was promptly smashed against the back window as the driver kicked at the brakes. The hatchback bucked as its rear end snapped loose, and the driver sawed on the wheel to keep it in line. Eventually, the wild careening stopped and the thing lurched to a halt, as did the rest of the war party.

Silence.

All I could hear was the pounding of my own heart and the thrumming of simmering engines surrounding me. Our driver flicked the car off once the turbochargers were cooled, and slowly, steadily, I watched him and his passenger exit the car and stalk around to the back. Bright headlights sliced ribbons into my vision as the tailgate swung open once more.

The madman leaped at his chance.

He shoved off the back of the driver's seat, unheeding to the chains that bound his legs together as he exploded outwards like a wild stallion out for blood. He barreled into the pale Boy trying to wrangle me out of the car, and down they both went in a flurry of sand, dust, chains, and flailing limbs. Instantly several others closed on them, trying to drag them apart but he held fast, his face buried up against his victim's neck, knees carving ruts into the dirt as he fought to keep his opponent pinned.

With a pang of horror, I realized that the blue-eyed fool had his teeth sunk deep into the young man's flesh.

His jaw only released after he was jabbed repeatedly with a nasty-looking piece of steel that sparked ominously at one end. Once, twice, three times the blunt shaft was laid across his ribcage, cracking against flesh and bone. He reared back. Blood streamed from his jaws as he twisted around with his bloodied teeth bared in an all-out snarl. He stumbled, chains rattling as he paced like a caged animal, searching for an opening as the ring of War Boys tightened around him…

I tried to call to him, warn him of what was coming. But when the lasso sang through the air and caught him in the open mouth, he was powerless as they reined him backwards and hauled him to the ground. The rope was knotted at the back of his head and it took two of them to hold him down with all his thrashing.

Spitting in pain, he sought my gaze and found it, and my body twitched with the desire to join the fray.

He spat blood that I knew didn't belong to him onto the ground and grimaced through rufescent lips and bloodstained teeth despite the rope clamped between his jaws. His gashed head still oozed. I felt sick just looking at him. He was a _man_ ; why were these War Boys treating him as they would an animal?

"No good, spare parts, you're _rusty_!" The one who'd suffered the bite staggered to his feet. He kept one hand clamped around his wound while the other fumbled for his revolver. I could see the jagged half-oval of a lower jaw print embedded in his shoulder, leaking bright blood that streamed over his bare chest.

I surprised even myself by crying out. "No! _Stop,_ you bastard!" The desperation in my voice was thinly masked as I started towards the scene, but was promptly jerked back by rough hands on my restraints.

"He goes to the rusted gates of Hell!" Shoulder-Bite cocked his weapon and jammed it against the madman's shredded forehead. "Don't worry. It'll be over quick." He grinned wickedly, letting his aim wander off-mark, finally holding it just at the start of his captive's spine. "Or not."

 _"_ _ENOUGH!"_

Every War Boy's hands were immediately laced in the V8 formation as they cast their attention to the ground. _Cowards._ Unable to look their leader in the eye. I, for one, stood my ground, held my head high, and glared down my nose as the sallow man stalked right up to me. I felt as though he was probing my mind as one would a book of records…

Immortan Joe spun around with all the agility of a heavyset, diseased specimen of a man at the end of his life. Wiry white hair snapped in the wind and caught in the edges of his hideous horse-tooth breathing mask, and his transparent armor blazed in the light of dozens of idling vehicles. "You!" he barked, jabbing a finger at Shoulder-Bite. "Unhand him. I need him _alive_. Understand?"

"Alive?" Shoulder-Bite caught himself and bit off the inquiry. Lifting his hands submissively, he made a show of disengaging his gun and stowing it safely back in his belt holster. "Yes, Immortan." He dipped his head and flashed the V8. "My apologies. I wasn't—"

"Save it," Joe snapped, silencing the Boy as he turned back to me. I found the sudden silence that fell like a heavy blanket over the desert disturbing – even the madman had fallen still, having given up resisting. I swallowed hard and wondered if Immortan could hear my heart pounding like the pistons of a four-banger motor at redline.

"Imperator Furiosa." The name, usually spoken in reverence, was nothing but a dirty insult spilling from Immortan Joe's lips. "Where are they? What have you done with my wives? I _need_ them back!"

Without missing a beat, I hurled my response quick as a sniper's bullet. "Go to Hell."

Joe took a heavy step back, nodding slowly to himself. His eyes gleamed and I saw the gears of thought clicking in that hideous brain of his. I couldn't see his stinking mouth under that apparatus but I knew he was grinning by the way his eyes wrinkled at the corners. Some sort of non-vocal signal passed through him in a ripple of muscle and a twitch of the head, and less than a second later I heard a muffled, wet _crack_ followed by a hoarse scream.

The madman!

I whirled in his direction. The need to protect him was overwhelming; it burned at my arms and legs like I was knee-deep in boiling hot oil. Through the tightly-packed circle of War Boys, I couldn't see what they were doing to _him_. Judging by the meaty _thuds_ of fists cracking at flesh and the low moans of pain, they were beating the poor man within an inch of his life. Heat pricked at my eyes, my mouth forming a silent _no_ that never made it past my vocal cords.

"You're extremely selfless, Imperator. The mark of a good leader." Immortan turned back to me, his eyes gone hard. He cast a hand into the air. The War Boys responded by snapping back to attention and abandoning their assault on the madman. I could hear his ragged breathing punctuated by spluttered curses.

"You are strong, and I know that no matter what I do to you, you will never break." Joe's voice sent venomous chills down my spine. I gritted my teeth and tried to suppress the shudder. I couldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me squirm.

He paused a moment, and I listened to him breathe. I turned my head down and stared coolly at him through my brow, mouth twitching at the corners. I knew this man, and I knew his ways, but that didn't make him seem any less intimidating. We sized each other up and just as I was considering what it might take to kill him right then and there, his malformed shoulders rose and he continued.

"But, your selflessness. That is your vulnerability. You care too much about _others_. With that in mind, Furiosa… I'll ask again." He nodded and rolled his eyebrows down his forehead. "Where have my wives gone?"

I sneered and looked away. There was a gap in the War Boy corral now and through it I saw a pair of gray-blue eyes glassy with pain. The madman's brows drew together and he gave a short shake of his head. _Don't give in._ I wondered if he could hear the conversation.

"I wish I knew," I said in a voice of pure ice. It wasn't entirely a lie. I only knew the general direction that Nux had driven the War Rig, but that was it. I had no definitive destination. Obviously, Immortan didn't much care for that answer, and with a flick of his wrist he sicced his War Boys on my madman again. I cried out as though I was the one being struck. They punched, and kicked, and grabbed at his roped-up face, each diving in for a turn to take their sadistic desires out on him. I watched him bleed into the sand as they pummeled the life out of him until he stopped crying out and just sort of laid still, unresponsive to the abuse.

They would kill him.

They would kill him right there, right in front of me, and I suddenly realized I couldn't live with that on my conscience. Here was this madman, this broken soul who got wrapped up in my crazy plot to save the girls by sheer happenstance, but he'd almost given his life to preserve the mission and had proved himself invaluable many times over.

I didn't subscribe to the theory of fate, but damned if he hadn't been exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. I _needed_ him here.

"Southeast!" I shouted. "I was taking them southeast. If they went on without me, that's where they're headed!"

Silence.

My chest heaved and I felt like I'd jumped headfirst into the Rig's water tank, I was sweating so much. My body twitched and trembled and my teeth sought the inside of my upper lip. I tasted blood.

Immortan signaled his Boys and they fell away from the madman, looking towards us expectantly. I felt the bastard in my head again. He was reading me through my eyes. I held strong and tilted my head up to reach my full height. The scrutiny burned and smoldered in my chest as my heart slammed against my ribs.

He grinned again and stepped back. "Very well," he said. "Southeast! We head southeast!"

The word spread like wildfire through the ranks of War Boys. They hooted and hollered and took up their steering wheels and split off into all different directions. The air thrummed with the engines as they sparked to life again, and I allowed my taut shoulders to relax.

I'd told a blatant lie to Immortan Joe and gotten away with it.

"You! Take them. Keep them in your car, but make sure you stay directly in front of me at all times. I want to be able to look at our captives as we run our bounty down." Immortan pinned the three War Boys in his stare, the scouts who'd hauled us in.

"Yes, Immortan." It was Shoulder-Bite, the driver of our hatchback. I was handed off as roughly as a man would toss a tire to another and shoved back towards that godawful armored car, but I knew better than to resist as I collapsed into the back again. I shook and shuddered and hated myself. I wasn't sure what came next, but I _was_ sure that my little lie wouldn't be kept under wraps for long. Immortan had a way of finding things out, and I feared for my life.

"What about him?" One of the others was hoisting a barely-conscious madman up by his rope bridle. He teetered on his feet and would have fallen if not for the hand wrapped up in his hair.

Immortan cast a sideways glance at the drooping man before he sighed. "Mechanic! Ride with them. Do whatever it takes to keep him alive. We might need him again."

"Yes, sir." The Organic Mechanic, the closest thing we had to a medic, hopped down from his perch inside the Gigahorse's cab. He barked orders at the team of War Boys responsible for our little hatchback, brandishing a rusted tin med-kit as he followed them.

I rolled to the side to give the bleeding madman room as he smashed down onto the floor of the car beside me. Not even a grunt escaped him. New bruises purpled every patch of visible skin and I knew that the worst of the damage was underneath his clothes. His head wound still bled profusely, dark clotted stuff mixing with bright thinning blood. His gaze was distant, even more so than before, a busted blood vessel in his left eye drowning the blue-gray iris in scarlet. More gore, diluted with saliva, streamed from the corner of his mouth and traced a line along his jaw before disappearing into the shadows under his neck. He no longer fought his bindings and lay cadaverously still. The only indication that he wasn't dead already was the slight rise and fall of his chest.

The Mechanic stuffed himself into the back of the hatchback and sort of nudged me to the side with a dusty boot so he'd have room to kneel. "Did a number on 'im. Be surprised if he makes it," he muttered under his breath as he flipped open his kit and prepared some sort of injection. "Waste'a supplies, if ya ask me…"

I was the only one who heard, and my hands suddenly felt sticky. Sticky with the blood of the madman.


	3. Chapter 3

**_[max rockatansky]_**

They were using the metal file all wrong.

It was _my_ key to freedom, and yet there it was, propping up the driver's seat like a shim! I needed that damn thing – didn't they know that?!

So I edged myself over the dented floor of the hatchback. Ignored the way my ribs ground around inside me like shards of rock in a bag of meat. Everything hurt and hurt bad. My head was the worst. Skin was swollen, pulled taut over my scalp, and I felt the stinging seam of stitches holding it together.

Blood dried on my lips. Most of it wasn't mine.

Well, now what? I was right there, right next to the file, and I would've gone for it with my jaws had they not been bitted by a piece of rope wrapped around my head. My hands were stuck and awkwardly twisted up behind my back, so they were all but useless, even as I pressed my spine to the back of the driver's seat and tried to finagle myself into a good enough position to get a grip on it. The backs of my knuckles scraped across the strip of rusted metal, but that was the best I could do. Couldn't get a hold of it.

I flipped myself over, and an angry slash of pain across my abdomen reminded me that probably wasn't a good idea. I was damaged, badly damaged, wounded in ways that should've probably killed me. Why did I still breathe?

My elbows were relatively free, my range of motion with them was greater than any other part of me. I snapped my back into a weird angle and reached out with an elbow. Metal grated across thin flesh stretched over bone. I thought that maybe if I tried hard enough, I could pin the metal strip to the floorboard, use it as leverage to get it out.

Part of me knew it was futile. Most of me was too desperate to care.

I kept at it. Even when my skin opened up and blood seeped from rended vessels, I kept at it. The joint began to ache, and my gunshot arm shuddered and shook with every movement, but I paid no mind. I _needed_ that file. Wasn't sure what I'd do with it if I ever got it out, but that didn't matter; I'd cross that bridge when I got to it. For now I was obsessed with loosening it from its firm entrapment underneath the seat, because I was certain that somehow, someway, that thing was the key to my freedom.

Soon the leg of the bench seat was slick and oily with my blood, and I was getting nowhere. The pain only spurred me on. Faster. If I moved faster, I could break it free. Bone thumped against metal. I felt a bruise swelling up the joint. Didn't matter. Didn't care. Had to get out of here. That file was the only way that I could see, at least.

A shadow fell across the corner of my vision.

My eyes cut to the edges of their sockets, locking onto the looming figure with a baleful glare. My lips pulled back and I showed my teeth over the rope clamped between them. Every channel in my body flipped to _defense_ mode, muscles went rigid under mottled bruising to protect my vital organs from assault, because I knew what was coming, they were gonna hit me again, strike me bloody until I saw the gates of Hell—

It was Furiosa.

My body withered. I'd completely forgotten that she was locked in here right alongside me. Couldn't really see her face, not with her back to the sun and deep shadows like a black stain over her features, but I knew she was regarding me with equal parts curiosity and concern. Dared a glance down at my throbbing elbow and saw skin rubbed raw and split open and blood everywhere, turning the woven shirt stretched across my forearm dark. The fabric, too, was torn, and I felt a flash of anger towards myself – why hadn't I thought of that? This was my only shirt! It was already falling apart, and I didn't want to have to track down a new one!

Furiosa sized me up for a moment. Stared at me like she couldn't figure me out. Her shoulder moved methodically back and forth and I saw she was desperately trying to break her stubbed arm free of the twine binding it to her chest. Her other arm was cuffed to her own belt, held straight down to her side. The knot that held the twine closed was fraying. Slowly coming apart. My face itched with the desire to do the same, to rid myself completely of this damned rope!

I attacked the file again.

She finally seemed to understand what I was up to.

Walking forward on her knees, and throwing nervous glances towards the driver's seat of the moving hatchback, she inched herself close to me. I beat at the bench. Now I was really starting to realize that my efforts were pointless. I was just draining myself of more precious blood and putting myself in danger of being found out by the two War Boys occupying the front of the car.

She nudged my arm out of the way with a knee, not unkindly, just enough to get me to stop. I let my damaged elbow thump heavily against the floorboard, watched as she sidled up against the back of the seat and threw a curious glare down at the file I'd only succeeded in bloodying up. Her spine was laid against the leather backing and she scraped the heels of her boots across the floor until she found some purchase.

She jerked her head in a short backwards motion, and with that, she slowly, gently pressed all her weight against the back of the seat. It creaked. There were a few rotting fasteners bolting it to the floorboards, but apparently they were rusty, because they stripped easy enough and sprouted up through the metal flooring with a horrifyingly loud grinding sound.

Furiosa and I both froze. She trembled, just barely, as she propped the seat up with her back, and the strain of it showed plainly in her tightening jaw.

Neither of the Boys seemed to notice what we were up to. After two agonizing moments, Furiosa and I eased back into motion. I understood her intention. There was clearance now. I could get a hold on the file. My bloodied elbow slashed at empty air once, twice, before I finally made contact. When I did, I bore down with all the strength I had in the one arm and dragged the rusting piece of metal out into the open. As gently as she could, Furiosa relinquished her hold on the seat itself, and it settled back down into its proper position.

We waited.

Again, the War Boys seemed too preoccupied with driving (actually, I was pretty sure that the one in the passenger's seat was dead asleep) to notice that their captives were moving around. We had to be careful, though – I felt the glare of their leader's machine through the rear windscreen. We were easily visible to them. Meant we had to be extra careful.

Cold touch on my damaged arm. Furiosa, dragging the metal file away from me. I let her. I wanted the damn thing, but I let her take it from me. She pointed it upwards, resting it against her forearm, and began to quietly chip away at the twine wrapped around her torso. In the undulating light obscured by the shadows of moving vehicles all around us, I saw her damage. Where the twine lay, her skin was raw and shiny from burn, and slight indentations marked where it had borne into her.

I was starting to feel woozy. Light shot across my vision. Sounds that weren't products of the environment rang loud in my ears. Whispers. Voices. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to relieve it, but to no avail. As delirium reared its ugly head and gripped the base of my skull with icy fingers, I cursed the voices in my head and the people they belonged to. _Go away, get lost somewhere out there in the Plains of Silence, leave me alone, alone, alone…!_

Of course, that didn't work. They didn't listen. They never listened.

They were waiting for me.

I must've blacked out. It was a mercy. Couldn't feel any pain, at least for a little bit, but when I awoke and realized that everything hurt twice as bad as it had before, I found myself resisting the urge to bludgeon myself back into oblivion on the metal floorboards. My head, my neck, my back, my sides, my leg! Vocal cords formed a groan that never quite made it past my cracking lips. I reached up to explore the sealed gash on my forehead. Frowned when I felt the heat of injury and the row of sloppily-tied stitches holding the torn flesh together.

Wait a minute.

My hands were free.

I flipped over onto my back, pretending I didn't feel it when I pissed off my damaged ribs again, and held my palms in front of my face. My wrists were bruised, blistered, bloody. Bloody… but free. I studied my hands at every angle. Flexed my fingers to confirm they still worked. (They did.) I curled them into fists and watched the tendons along my forearm draw them closed.

Something nudged my side. I startled. Almost bashed my face into someone's scuffed leather boot. I followed the boot with wary eyes, my tongue dodging out of the way of my teeth as I ground my jaw, prepared to fight if need be.

But, thankfully, the boot belonged to Furiosa, and when I met her emerald green eyes she gave me the tiniest nod.

Movement at her side drew my attention. She showed me the file, so bloodied I couldn't tell what was rust and what was fluid, and her fingers were raw, worked almost to the bone. At some point during her breakout, the thing had come apart. The jagged seam of cracked metal ran at an angle through the middle, and slowly, gently, she extended half of it to me.

I reached out. My gunshot arm ached and the muscles around the wound quivered with fatigue. Ignored it. The file slipped into my hand, sticky with blood, mine and Furiosa's, and I grasped it like I would die if I dropped it.

My legs were unbound now, too, as were my companion's. I suddenly felt agonizingly humbled in her presence. Why had she done this? Why had she saved my life? I didn't deserve it. I never did…

She made sure I was paying attention to her face, and when I looked at her she gave the tiniest jerk of her head towards the War Boys in the front seat. The hatchback's springs clapped through a rut in the road. The car jerked, my shoulder thumped the floorboards. I swallowed back the groan that rose in my throat and the sour taste that followed excessive pain. Furiosa waited, then showed me her half of the metal file with a quick arc of her wrist, then thrust it at our captors.

I didn't respond. Too afraid to nod – I was battling the worst case of vertigo I'd ever dealt with. The car's vicious swaying as it careened through unchartered desert was enough to keep my head from clearing, and I didn't exactly feel like worsening the condition simply for the sake of an agreeing gesture. I knew what she meant, though, as she understood me.

We were about to commandeer this hatchback.

A heartbeat passed, then two. My spine slid upwards against the rear of the car, pushed me into a sitting position, so then I walked forward on my hands so I was propped up on all fours, knees and palms. Watched Furiosa. Waited.

She jumped.

I took that as my cue.

My heels dug against the rear hatch of the car, and I coiled my strength into my bent knees before shoving off with arms outstretched and makeshift weapon brandished. The dull metal flashed evilly in the light from the windshield. My forearms thumped the back of the bench seat. My hands hung over the edge. The driver's head swung around in slow motion, his dark eyes widening in his pale face, and skin shifted over his shoulder as he grappled for the weapon strapped to his ribcage, shock and fear blazing into sloppy panic.

It was the look of a man who knew he was about to die.

With a jagged downward sweep of my arm, I targeted the glistening eyeball. Felt tissue and membranes give way before the file smacked against a thin layer of bone. _Crack._ Shattered the eye socket. I twisted my wrist for good measure. Something gushed into my fist. Told myself it was blood. I slapped a palm into the weapon. It glided, crunched, tore, and stuck.

My victim slumped to the side, and the hatchback slowed, hooked sharply to the right as the driver's limp hand caught in the ornamented steering wheel.

I launched myself over the seat and landed next to the sagging corpse, pausing a minute to yank the file from its bloodied eye socket. Angry scarlet streaks marred my leathers as I swiped the dirty metal file over my thigh. He had my jacket draped over his shoulders. Bastard. I took it back from him and tossed it onto the floorboards. One hand steadied the steering wheel while the other triggered the lock on the door. My knee swept to the side and knocked it open. It screamed on its hinges and hot air billowed into the cab as the car's side yawned open. I pressed my shoulder into the corpse, threw all my weight against it, and it thumped into the sand with a meaty _thud._

Beside me, Furiosa dumped the passenger, but not before she yanked all his guns off his person and tossed them onto the floorboards. I latched my door closed and fell on the accelerator, one rust-colored hand seeking the long-handled shifter knob running to the floor. The car had stalled, so I cycled the ignition switch, threw the transmission back into gear and made that duo-turboed engine work.

Furiosa easily loaded the rifle she'd lifted off her victim, streaking the smooth barrel with blood, threw it aside, slapped a handful of bullets into the revolver in her other hand. "You got five rounds," she said, spinning the cylinder before snapping it back into place. She extended it to me. I took it, balanced my wrist against the wheel so I could steer and aim the gun with the same hand, and drove.

We were starting to draw attention.

Harpoon guns swung towards us, the bad-news ends of thunder sticks and the barrels of firearms traced our every movement. Itchy trigger fingers twitched, and wild eyes peered from ghostly faces as they locked on us, and each one told me we would die here.

I slammed the shifter into a lower gear, felt the rear tires bite into the sand, and the hatchback exploded forward.

Bullets whined and sparks flew away from the roof of the hatchback. I sawed on the wheel, felt the car fishtail unhappily in response, but I knew that I needed to get us out of the line of fire. Webbings of cracks hissed away from the shots that fell off the windshield, but no steel ended up inside the car. Wasn't sure how much more it could take before it finally shattered.

Furiosa answered a handful of shots with a few of her own before ducking back inside the car and digging more bullets from a box on the floor. I tapped the brake to keep from smashing us into the back of a coupe that had slowed dramatically to allow its lancer to swing a thunder stick in our direction. He leered at me, and I didn't much care for his face, so I sent a bullet out the window that tore out his throat.

 _Four more shots._

There was a gap to our left; beyond that, nothing but desert. Wasn't sure if I was driving the fastest machine in the war party, and I began to fear that our escape might be futile, but I had a mostly full tank of guzzoline and a death wish. Teasing the e-brake, I locked up the rear tires, danced the hatchback around a car that threatened to broadside us, and smashed the accelerator to the floorboards. Yellow sand slung away from the rear tires.

Around us, the war party awoke, and soldiers eager to die pointed their machines at us.

Cars swung in our direction, weapons bristled like the hairs along the spines of wild dogs. Furiosa's shoulders jerked with the recoil of her rifle as she unloaded it into the cluster, seemingly at random, but I knew that every bullet had struck someone, and every bullet had claimed at least one life. Her face was grim, and I knew she didn't particularly like firing on the same band she'd once fought alongside, but when I caught her gaze and leveled her with a meaningful look, she dipped her head and told me that she knew she couldn't ever go back.

I almost dropped that thought a split second later, because suddenly I was staring down the barrel of her gun.

She pulled the trigger.

Hot blood sprayed my back, dyed what was left of the window with scarlet, and the lancer who'd almost run me through from ear to ear fell from his perch and was ground into the earth by heavy tires.

 _Pay attention_ , Furiosa's eyes said to me, and then she dropped her gaze as she dumped more ammo into her rifle. I picked off the next guy who pointed a gun at her, then whirled around and sent another tumbling off the roof of his car. We were nearing the break, our path to freedom, I could see it! I had it all mapped out, a zigzagging run through the narrow gulley between the dunes. The war party would have a hell of a time pursuing us through it. They'd have to fall in single-file (two-wide, if they were excellent drivers) and spread themselves out thin.

I knew these parts. I understood the way the sands rolled and swayed across the landscape. It was never the same place twice, not when the wind swept down from higher altitudes to sculpt, but since I'd been here (or someplace similar) many times, I had the advantage. I knew the turf. I could lose them. I knew I could.

By now, word of the rogue hatchback had spread like wildfire through the war party, and they gave chase.

Now, instead of cutting perpendicularly across the flow of traffic, we were running parallel with it, and Furiosa was taking advantage of the cars that matched our speed, picking off drivers one by one, as easily as if they'd been standing still. I just focused on funneling the hatchback into that space between the dunes, watching, waiting for the party to realize what I was up to. _Follow me,_ I thought at them. _You need to follow me._

Furiosa loaded, aimed, shot, loaded, aimed, shot in methodic cadence, timing her assaults with the reload cycle of the car directly behind us. The road began to narrow. Sand dunes rose on either side, streaking past as they reared high into the cerulean sky. The hatchback bucked over ruts in the path. I fought to keep it under control. _No traction with all fours in the air._ I wasn't about to give our pursuers an easy time by throwing us into a rollover. I let off the accelerator, waited until I felt the rear wheels bite again, then jammed the car forward. Granules of sand scratched the doors, skittered off the windshield, and I worried that the engine might choke.

I only had one option: fang it. If the car broke, then the car broke.

Clouds blotted out the sun and dimmed the brightness of the midmorning sun; shadows toyed with the outline of my vision and narrowed my focus so all I could see was the path directly in front of me. That was fine, though. Didn't need to see any more than that.

Furiosa was perched with her knees on the bench seat, her torso stretched as far as it could go so she could see out the roof of our car. "They're gaining," she reported and slid the hatch shut. I grunted in response and focused on keeping the machine between the dunes and on the ground. Didn't need to go jumping. Bad for the suspension, and I could feel that the alignment was skewed. The hatchback wanted to veer off to the right, like gravity was shifting it in that direction.

Something tickled the side of my face. I took one hand off the wheel to scratch at my cheekbone. Nails rasped over skin, curved my knuckles and dug them into the flesh, hoping to alleviate the irritation. Dust, or something, maybe a rock. Except there was nothing there. Snorting air through my nose, I stuck my hand back to the steering wheel and kept the car matted.

It started to drift off to the side again. Before I could catch it, though, Furiosa's hand shot out and snagged the edge of the wheel, reined the machine in and held it steady. "What are…"

Her words fell off when she looked at my face.

Thought I heard her curse. Maybe not. Couldn't hear much over the roaring in my ears. She produced a knife from thin air and set to work sawing away a chunk from the hem of her shirt. Wondered what she was doing. Focused on the road. Seemed the war party was having trouble figuring out how to funnel into the gulley between the dunes. My plan had worked! Only a few machines trickled in behind us, the rest fought for position. Behind them all, the double-decker war chariot hulked, staring after us with disdain.

I flinched when pressure met my wounded skull. Struck out with a hand. Slammed into a forearm, shoved it away.

"Hey," came the stern response. I slid my eyes to the side and saw Furiosa clutching the piece of her ruined shirt. Wait a minute. I thought her shirt was white. Why was the scrap… red?

I dug a palm against the wound. Came back sticky, red, rusty with blood. My blood. I bared my teeth and forced air through them and clamped a palm down on the gash again.

This time, when Furiosa gently pushed my hand aside and pressed the scrap of cloth to the bleeding wound, I didn't try to pull away. "You keep driving," she ordered, so I slapped both hands back down onto the wheel and gritted my teeth and spurred the machine forward.

Drove like that for several minutes, Furiosa pressing the bandage to my head, me trying to ignore the way it made my head throb and my vision blacken at the edges. Those weren't shadows. I was losing sight. Probably blacking out. Had to stay alert. I made myself pay attention to the tachometer. The needle danced in time with my foot on the gas pedal.

"Hold," she said after the silence, and I pushed my palm against the wadded-up scrap placed against my skull. She had her rifle in her hand, and let off one shot. In my rearview, I watched the sidewall of one tire blow out on the car behind us, and then the other, and suddenly the splitter of the poor machine was acting more like a plow than anything else, churning sand in its wake. Last thing I saw before forcing my eyes back to the road was the ass-end of the machine in the air. In slow motion, it collapsed over on its roof, and then the side of the thing blew apart as it was bludgeoned, turned over, tore itself to shreds.

More importantly, blocking the path behind us like a gate.

"Here." Furiosa sat back down, tossed her spent rifle into the back of the car and took the piece of cloth from my hand. Gently, she bore down on it, the pressure building slowly this time. Wasn't as much of a shock now. I eased into it. I wasn't sure how badly I was bleeding, or if it was life-threatening, and I really was starting to feel dizzy and I didn't think I could keep driving for much longer without plowing us into a dune.

At least I had her to keep me from bleeding out.

I'm not sure what finally tipped Furiosa off that she needed to take the wheel from me. Maybe it was the fact that I'd lost most of my peripheral vision, and my heart was beating fast, and I was breathing hard, and goddamn it was hot in this car, why did my head hurt so bad? I was swerving. Felt the rear end of the car drift wide. Had enough sense to yank it out of the spin and turn it straight again, but the machine reflected my wavering control by jumping around under my touch: jerky acceleration, staggering through turns.

We'd ditched the war party. That was all that mattered.

Now that the rush of adrenaline had worn off, and the heat of the battle was over, I realized just how exhausted I really was. Furiosa spoke, told me to pull the car up, so I limped off course and left it idling. Next thing I knew, she was putting the machine through its paces while I stared listlessly out the window, feeling slightly self-conscious because I knew the steering wheel was slicked up with my blood and the shifter knob was, too. I kept a fist pressed to my head, where the bloodied bandage weighed heavy on my skull and dragged me down. I had to stay alert, though. If Furiosa was driving, that meant I had to play the part of gunner, lookout, scout.

"Come on," she said after a while, and I realized we'd finally run the poor hatchback out of gas and not a refinery in sight. She jammed the e-brake to the floor and rushed around to my side of the car. "Up there."

I followed her finger, and there, ambling across the horizon in a cloud of yellow dust, was the hulking humpback silhouette of the War Rig.

She got me out of the car, and my feet started to sink into the sand while she fished my jacket off the floor and tossed it at me, paused to pick up the weapons before turning her back on our stolen machine. "Let's move." She took me by an arm, and I loped awkwardly after her as we bolted up the hill towards the massive hybrid Rig, and part of me wondered if it was just a mirage and we'd both drop dead from exhaustion before we reached it.

It was real, though. I knew when I limped up to it and sagged against the side of the tanker, relishing the feel of the cool metal against my cheek. Beside me, Furiosa ran her hands over the machine, greeting it in the same way one would an old friend, and then suddenly its passengers were all around us: the four women and the pale man, all welcoming us back with the same mixture of relief, disbelief, and concern.

I glanced over at Furiosa. She caught my gaze.

She didn't thank me, not with words, but that was okay because I knew she meant it.

- ** _END_** -


End file.
